(playful music) - [Narrator] This is the
Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, which according to
multiple industry surveys is America's favorite fast food. Visit a Chick-fil-A anywhere
in the United States and you're likely to see
a long line of customers, patiently waiting to order the restaurant's flagship menu item. - There you guys go. - Thank you so much.
- My pleasure. Y'all have a great rest of your day. - Thank you.
- My pleasure. - [Narrator] In part thanks
to its famous chicken, today Chick-fil-A is the third
largest US restaurant chain by domestic sales. - We're still seeing a tremendous
growth in our business. So far this year, we're up about 20%. - [Narrator] So how did
this private Atlanta-based fast food chain become one of the most popular
restaurants in America? This is "The Economics of Chick-fil-A." (upbeat music) Chick-fil-A has long had a
unique approach to business that the company credits with its success. From the beginning, Chick-fil-A's business was built on a recipe. After testing hundreds of methods, restaurateur Truett Cathy
developed a faster way to cook boneless chicken using a pressure cooker and peanut oil. - It's perfect and so we've
kept that locked away in a vault and we'll continue to
use that same recipe. - None of the employees have access to it, so it is still shrouded
in a lot of mystery. There are recipe sites where
you can try to recreate it but they have never put it out officially. - [Narrator] The original chicken sandwich is the same today as in 1967. A breaded breast of chicken, two pickles, both placed
on a buttered toasted bun. ♪ Hey, Chick-fil-A today ♪ ♪ Chick-fil-A ♪ ♪ The boneless breasted
chicken we're famous for ♪ - [Heather] Chick-fil-A
has long taken pride for its commitment to
selling high-quality product. - [Narrator] In fact, Chick-fil-A's name is a take on chicken filet with a capital A at the end
symbolizing top-quality. While other fast food chains tend to expand their menu offerings over time to attract new customers, Chick-fil-A's business model has always been to maintain a small menu, focused on chicken sandwiches. - They like to say it's simple. So they want to keep customers knowing what's on that menu to be able to easily
decipher what they want. - We think about the way
that we serve guests. That consistency is really important, that we get hot sandwiches,
and cold salads, and just tasty products. - [Narrator] Customers seem to agree. Since its creation in 2015, the American Customer Satisfaction Index has been dominated by Chick-fil-A. - Chick-fil-A often rates very high. Even though the service in
the drive-thru can be slower, people are very happy with the quality and the service they get in general. - [Narrator] Today, many
Chick-fil-A restaurants use a practice known as upstream ordering where an associate will
take a customer's order while they're still waiting in line. - This started before the pandemic but has really proved very important to the pandemic when they
closed their dining rooms, which really meant the drive-thru is the major channel of sales. So if you go to a Chick-fil-A now, in many locations, you
will see workers out in the drive-thru with tablets. And so instead of speaking
into a speaker box and kind of mumbling your order and it maybe getting screwed up, you're telling this person
directly next to your car what you want. - [Narrator] To ensure that quality in every one of its location, Chick-fil-A uses a
different franchise model than most other fast food chains. Unlike most chains where
the franchisee covers most of the costs of opening the restaurant, Chick-fil-A owns every
one of its locations. The company also selects the locations, and builds the restaurants. - We really think that
that's a key differentiator in the way that we operate. We're not looking for a financial investor or people that wanna buy a big market and open a bunch of stores. - [Narrator] Chick-fil-A
states on their website, "Franchising is not an opportunity for passive financial investment, working from the sidelines, or adding to a portfolio
of business ventures." Franchisees are called operators, and each operator is hand
picked by Chick-fil-A after a rigorous interview process. - Chick-fil-A likes to
say it's about like going to Harvard MBA. It can take anywhere from
12 months, 24 months. So you really have to want to do this, and be willing to go through
the initial paperwork but then extensive interviews. - [Narrator] Out of the
more than 8,000 applicants Chick-fil-A receives annually, the company only selects about
130 new operators a year. That's an acceptance
rate lower than Stanford. - One of the skills
that we really look for is somebody that's really
good at developing people. A lot of the stores
have over 100 employees. They've gotta be really, really good at pouring in and developing people in teams and leadership teams. - [Narrator] If selected,
Chick-fil-A franchisees needs only an initial
investment of $10,000, which covers the franchise fee to become an operator. That's much lower than the startup costs for a McDonald's franchise, which requires a $45,000 franchise fee, as well as 1.3 to $2.3 million of additional investment. - If they have 10 or 15 locations, it's hard to have that market presence and to really know their team members and the communities that we serve. And we've got a lot of
interest to become operators, and feel like that model is gonna be really important. It's what's gotten us to where we are. - [Narrator] Chick-fil-A
credits this hands-on approach with the success of its restaurants, which on average, make far
more off of each location than their competition. For years, Chick-fil-A's footprint was mostly in the southeast, but today, it can be
found across the country. - They have about 2,600 restaurants throughout the country. They're also located in Canada and they're opening in Puerto Rico. - We're opening about 100
stores a year right now and we've got a lot of
growth potential here just domestically in United States but we're also looking
at international as well. - [Narrator] Since 2007,
Chick-fil-A's nearly doubled its restaurant count to 2,598. - Compared to a lot of other chains, that's still slow. Like a Chipotle is opening
200 restaurants a year. - [Narrator] No matter
which Chick-fil-A location you eat at, the company says its values are reflected in its day-to-day operations. - It is a very close culture. They're also invested in its values, which they do say are based
on Judeo-Christian values, which you don't have to be
a Christian to work there but they do take some
of these basic values of humility and generosity, and if you wanna go to a prayer
service while you're there, you certainly can. - [Narrator] From its inception, founder Truett Cathy's Christian
faith played a major role in the company's business strategy. It's why Chick-fil-As
are never open on Sunday, not just so workers can attend church but also so they can rest in general. - We feel like we make up for the sales in the Monday through Saturday, and that anticipation of I
can't get Chick-fil-A today, so I wanna make sure to go
first thing Monday morning. - [Narrator] It's also
the reason the company has never gone public. - I don't think we'll ever, actually, I know we'll never go public. And there's not a real
benefit for us to do that. We've grown conservatively, and so we don't need a lot of investors or extra cash to go
and to build new stores or new businesses. - [Narrator] Part of Cathy's values are reflected in how employees are treated and how they're expected
to treat customers. - Thank you.
- My pleasure. Y'all have a great day. - [Narrator] Although you
won't see it in restaurants where the employees are masked up, Chick-fil-A has long asked employees to greet customers warmly with a smile. - Even if it's just in a
very small interaction, you can share a lot by just the smile the team member has with guests. It's just a small little thing that we can do that makes a difference. - [Narrator] Occasionally,
Chick-fil-A's values have attracted scrutiny, especially when the
company's foundation donates to conservative groups or causes. - There's been some groups
perceived as anti-gay and this has attracted attention
from progressive groups. The company's foundation last year has focused its charitable giving on three different areas: homelessness, hunger and education. - I think the most important thing for us being in the restaurant business is that we serve everybody. My grandfather, I love how he
talked about it with politics. He would say, "I'm not
right wing or left wing, I'm the whole chicken." - When you go to headquarters in Atlanta, there is this rock with
a quote from Truett that is displayed prominently that says what Chick-fil-A's
corporate purpose, it says, "To Glorify God by being a faithful steward of
all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A." I do think that reflects
this very higher noble sense of company self they have. They believe they do more than just serve chicken sandwiches. - Thank you so much.
- My pleasure. Have a nice one.
- Bye. (lively music)
